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Aurora's Research Programs

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The mission of Aurora’s Research business sector and its Research and Development
Center (RDC) is to perform basic and applied research supporting Aurora’s core business
and product development efforts in the areas of unmanned aircraft systems, small
space systems, and other flight vehicles. The RDC supports Aurora’s other business
sectors, as well as serving the needs of external clients as diverse as NASA, the
DoD, and major government contractors.

Another key aspect of the RDC’s mission is to further research cooperation with
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other universities. Aurora’s
synergistic relationship with MIT gives access to the innovative ideas coming from
MIT faculty and students, and joins that with Aurora’s proven ability to bring technologies
from the lab into actual systems that can address customer needs. Aurora’s Research
sector is maturing technologies across a wide range of disciplines. We focus on
areas such as propulsion, guidance and control, fault-tolerant avionics systems,
as well as cutting-edge new vehicle designs. The Research sector is also developing
innovative subsystems and components to integrate into these technology markets.
In October 2007, Aurora acquired Payload Systems Inc. (PSI), a company providing
science and engineering services for spaceflight and terrestrial applications since
1984. PSI’s programs and capabilities were merged with those of Aurora’s Research
sector, further expanding and complementing the group’s portfolio of technologies
and expertise.